Men From The Fountain

All three major WWI memorials with relevance to Ulster – Thiepval Memorial, Menin Gate, Ulster Tower – are brought together in a gallery in Londonderry’s Fountain as part of a tribute to the “Men from the Fountain who made the supreme sacrifice in the Great War.”

“Thiepval Memorial: The Thiepval Memorial to the missing of the Somme is a war memorial to 72,195 missing British and South African servicemen, who died in the battles of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 and 1918, with no known grave. It was built in red brick and limestone between 1928 and 1932. It is near the village of Thiepval, Picardy in France. A visitors’ centre opened in 2004.”

“Menin Gate: The Menin Gate memorial to the missing is a war memorial in Ypres, Belgium, dedicated to the 54,395 British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed in the Ypres salient of World War I and whose graves are unknown. The memorial is located at the eastern exit of the town and marks the starting point for one of the main roads out of the town that led Allied soldiers to the front line. The Menin Gate memorial was unveiled on 24 July 1927.”

“Ulster Tower: The Ulster Tower is Northern Ireland’s national war memorial. It was one of the first memorials to be erected on the western front and commemorates the men of the 36th (Ulster) Division and all those from Ulster who served in the First World War. The memorial was officially opened on 19 November 1921 and is a very close copy of Helen’s Tower which stands in the grounds of the Clandeboye estate, near Bangor, County Down, Northern Ireland. Many of the men of the Ulster division trained in the estate before moving to England and then France early in 1916. The Tower is staffed by members of the Somme Association, which is based in Belfast.”

Previously the site of In God We Trust.

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Peace If Possible, Truth At All Costs

“Londonderry west bank loyalists” are “still under siege”, at first from two decades of “Republican violence” – “Between 1971 and 1991 the Protestant population of the Cityside declined by 83.4% as a result of Republican violence (Shirlow et al. 2005)” – hence the boarded- and dressed-up windows – and now from the “PSNI”.

(The words “as a result of Republican violence” are not included in the Shirlow article).

Fountain Street and Hawkin Street, in the Fountain, Londonderry.

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Stigma Breakers & Law Makers

This is Wee Nuls’s (web | ig) street art celebrating the success of the ‘menstruation matters’ (ig) campaign for free period products and the passage of the Period Products Bill.

The piece is perhaps a “gremlin” self-portrait in the style of Mr Blonde/Vic Vega. It was painted for HTN22 in the spot below Transport House where her original version of Free Period Items was painted and blacked out. (It was then repainted at Artcetra.) To the left is Claire Prouvost’s tribute to women workers of the world and to left is a Unity (union) hoarding: Workers Of The World Unite.

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I Was Sick And Ye Visited Me

A gallery of faces from KVLR (ig) in Exchange Place, perhaps on their way to Belfast’s first maternity hospital, the Humane Female Society For The Relief Of Lying-In Women (Clifton House). “The Entries are passageways for the comings and goings of rich and poor, sugar and coal, horses and handcarts, porter and print, secrets and songs. Openings and entrances over the centuries. A labyrinth of muck-made Belfast brick at the mouth of the Farset.”

The in-progress shots are from June.

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You Beaut

North Street Arcade was burned down in April 2004 – see Who Burnt Us Out?. Since 2012, there has been street art at both its North Street and Donegall Street ends, the latest (from September, 2021) being this piece by Danni Simpson (ig) in Donegall St.

For the girl with owl left over from the previous Matt Sewell street art, see Only When The Dusk Starts To Fall (along with A Bird In The Hand and Carnival Of The Animals).

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Wind-Up Merchant

Work by Leo Boyd (web | ig) – and five other artists – is currently showing in The National in High Street. Today’s post shows 2019’s ‘Belfast Romances’ – still rolling in Victoria Street – featuring many familiar Boydisms: When Urban Love Goes Wrong, Belfast Kitty Hall, DeLorean cars, Godzilla – “The monster created by atoms gone wild! Escaped from Belfast zoo”, and the wind-up police land-rover.

“Approved by DC Tours

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